Tag Archives: demonstrate afffection

What Love Is

We’ve looked at what love is not. Now let’s look at what love is. One of the best descriptions ever written about love comes from the bible- from 1 Corinthians 13. These are words often read at wedding ceremonies. ‘Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeing, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.’ In other words it … Continue reading →

When They Act without Thinking

It might help you to know as a parent that a child acting first and thinking later is the norm–it does not mean that there is something wrong with your child or that he is somehow doomed to a life of mishaps, mistakes and apologies. As parents, however, it does mean that we have our work cut out for us in teaching our children how to slow down, weight the options and think BEFORE they act… Have you ever heard the following from your child: “I just wasn’t thinking” or “I forgot” or “I didn’t know what would happen”? I … Continue reading →

From Idea to Reality

Australia has been for some time and is still in the grip of a severe drought that has made life difficult for farmers and those on the land. But fellow Aussies on the South Coast have been doing there bit to help out those suffering the effects of drought. In early December, when my husband and I stopped off at Kiama on the way to Sydney, a benefit concert was setting up for later that day to raise money for those struggling at present. This week our local paper ran the story of a woman from the Bega area who … Continue reading →

Examples of Encouragment

Yesterday I wrote about words of encouragement. Yesterday and today, I had several examples of that and I know what a difference that encouragement has made to the start of my day. Two were regarding my writing. The first was an initial response from an experienced fellow writer and reader regarding the new manuscript I’m working on, which I’m looking forward to getting more detailed feedback on at the SCBWI conference in Sydney next month. The second was from a group of Australian children’s writers that I belong to, asking some questions about the structure of my novel due to … Continue reading →

When They Say They Don’t Care, It Often Means They DO

“I don’t care what you say!” or “I don’t care what happens”–how many times does a parent hear that in the course of raising a child? I have found, however, that when a child is touting how much he does NOT care about something, it generally is his way of covering up for the fact that he really does care. Now, this doesn’t mean that we try to force the issue as parents and tell our child, “Of course you care!” as he will just balk and refuse even more. But, it does give us insight into the fact that … Continue reading →

Putting It Into Practice – part 3

Yesterday, during my quiet time, I was encouraged after praying for healing and strength for a dear friend and his wife, to come across this line in ‘Streams in the Desert.’ It said ‘Perseverance in prayer is necessary to prevalence in prayer.’ In the passage for the day the point was made, that it is by praying we learn how to pray more effectively. In other words it comes back again to putting it into practice. When I conduct writing workshops I often tell my students it’s no good saying they want to write, or reading about writing, or even … Continue reading →

Sometimes the Best Action is NO Action

As parents, do we always have to jump, respond and react to things our children say and do? The answer, of course, is No…I am not advocating ignoring our kids or looking the other way when they do something dangerous or unhealthy. In fact, I have often written about how important it is for us to stay involved and give our kids the attention and guidance they need. But, there are those times when our NOT reacting or taking action has a stronger influence than if we jump right in… I know it seems counter to so much that we … Continue reading →

Putting It Into Practice – part 2

There’s a lot about the writing life that reminds me of the Christian life. As writers not everything we write will be accepted and published. Rejection, struggle and knock backs are part of most, dare I say all, writers lives. It’s how they are handled that makes the difference. It’s like I wrote about the other day – attitude. Our attitude can cause us to give up when rejection comes or to dig our toes in and think, ‘I’ll show you.’ This sort of attitude keeps us pressing on with determination. Sometimes that’s exactly what we need to do in … Continue reading →

Careless Words

Our words and our actions reveal who we are. No where is this more true than with family. With family we tend to let our guard down. With family we often behave in a way we would not with other people. This is often because we know family will love us no matter what we say or do. And so it is easy to slip into an attitude of spilling out exactly how we feel when we are angry or hurt or upset. Yes, I’m talking from experience here. God showed me only this week that I still have to … Continue reading →

Does This Action Demand a Response From Me?

I think one of the hardest things for me to do as a parent is to NOT respond to something my children say or do. I am deeply entrenched in being responsive after years of mothering and it is often difficult for me to evaluate whether the best response from me at any given moment might be no response at all. Cause and effect, action and reaction—thus is the dance of many a parent and child. Our children behave in a certain way, act out, say something and we respond in kind or at least with something we think is … Continue reading →